X-Message-Number: 2164 Date: Tue, 27 Apr 93 12:23:36 CDT From: Brian Wowk <> Subject: CRYONICS Reply to Michael Riskin Michael Riskin: > ...unless the patients are stored on the diaganol, their body width > is limited to 12 inches. Let the symbol ** represent a patient. The proper way to stand six patients in a square meter is ** ** ** ** ** ** not ** ** ** ** ** ** so body width is limited to 20" (half a meter) not 12". Something people often forget when thinking about space is that you should not look at the size of healthy people around you. You should really look at the size of dying people in nursing homes or AIDS hospices, which are much more representative of Alcor's patient population. By the way, square meter cells have now been abandoned in favor of one meter wide corridors. Patients will now be stored like --------------------- ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** --------------------- making the width question moot. > Would you explain vitrification? Vitrification is the approach to cryopreservation of organs being pursued by Greg Fahy at the Red Cross. Vitrification involves introducing a cryoprotectant mixture of such composition that no freezing (crystallization) of water occurs as you cool to -130'C. Liquid instead becomes increasingly viscous and eventually solid (vitreous) like glass. Freezing damage is thus avoided completely. Vitrification is the approach that will most likely be used to achieve reversible cryopreservation of the human brain (perhaps in this decade). Saul Kent is now forming a company and raising capital to pursue this research. This is important to cryonicists because reversible brain preservation virtually guarantees that cryonics will work (at least on technical level). Storage temperature is a critical aspect of vitrification. You must stay within -140'C to -120'C. Besides the superior security and economics, this consideration is a primary reason to build a Cold Room. We want to be ready for this technology when it arrives. Vitrification must be applied to single organs at a time. Whole bodies cannot be vitrified for this reason, and whole body members who wish to take advantage of this technology will probably have to have their brain stored separate from their body. That's vitrification. --- Brian Wowk Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=2164